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It’s often assumed that standards are for big business and are not really useful to smaller organizations. In fact it can be easily argued that the opposite is the case.

Standards are especially important to small businesses because they put you on a level playing field with larger organizations. The national and international standards are a route whereby everyone can access well-worked out, peer-reviewed best practice. Many standards spread current technology and best practice widely, which helps open market entry to smaller businesses.

Increasingly SMEs are adopting standards and benefiting from streamlined processes, refined products, extended markets and differentiation from the competition. As markets shrink these factors are becoming more important than ever. Competitiveness is becoming more important than ever and standards are a proven route to increased competitiveness and a stronger business.

* Using standards to reduce operating costs
* Standards for better products
* Standards for better customers
* Standards for a better brand
* Extend your markets
* Reduce your risk

How can you start to take advantage of using standards?

Download Small business guide to making standards work and read Small business case studies and then become a BSI Member.

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Businesses should leave the intricacies of search engine optimisation (SEO) to experts in the field, but should maintain control over the strategy as a whole, according to a commentator.

Melanie Lindner made the claim in a discussion on SEO on the Forbes website, which included comments and tips from SEO professionals.

But she advised that businesses can gain from understanding the process themselves and so having a degree of input.

‘While most entrepreneurs probably should farm out the programming of their sites, they shouldn’t turn over the design process altogether,’ she said.

‘Getting the biggest return on your online investment hinges on understanding what works and what doesn’t, so you can give the coders as much smart direction as possible.’

Another industry commentator, Galen DeYoung of Search Engine Land, provides tips on copywriting to help improve website rankings for business to business websites.

He believes that articles on these websites should focus on one topic per page and use generic rather than brand-specific terms for keyword-focus.

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Google has provided advice for website designers on how to make sure their site is correctly displayed on the company’s new browser, Chrome.

Maile Ohye, a developer for Google writing on the Webmaster Central blog, recommends using HTML rather than AJAX coding, as this will help search engines find the site.

And to achieve a uniform look across all browsers, validated code should be used, while designers should make sure that they have tested the usability of the site and not just its aesthetics.

‘When your site renders poorly or is difficult to use on many browsers you risk losing your visitors’ interest and, if you’re running a monetised site, perhaps their business,’ she wrote.

‘It’s possible that the clickable area of a linked image or button may change from browser to browser.’

According to research firm Net Applications, Chrome has a one per cent share of the browser market.

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Black hat search engine optimisation (SEO) is becoming less frequent, the head of spam abuse at Google has said.

Matt Cutts told cnet news that he felt legitimate, or white hat, SEO techniques were gradually becoming the norm and this was in part because of Google’s anti-spam policies.

The search engine uses algorithms to deal with particular automated spam-creating techniques but also takes manual action when required.

‘We see the majority of the trend is people trying to find legitimate ways [to promote their sites],’ Mr Cutts told the website.

‘The hope is you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.’

Google advises website designers to use its guidelines on how to avoid becoming a black hat SEO practitioner.

However, Gab Goldenberg, an SEO professional, recently put forward the argument that black hat SEO was not ‘in and of itself unethical’.

He said that it only became so when it ’significantly and negatively affects humans’, rather than an abstract mathematical system.

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Businesses can see increased traffic to their websites by getting the basics of SEO web design right, according to an industry commentator.

Chris Lake, the editor-in-chief of E-consultancy.com, thinks that while there are many ways to attract traffic, for businesses with a limited marketing budget it’s the basics that are most important.

He said: ‘Read up on how to make your site search-engine friendly, and if you can afford it, look at employing a search agency or a search expert in-house.’

Mr Lake also believes that businesses should embrace Web 2.0 technologies to make sure there are as many links back to their site as possible.

‘There are lots of examples of companies attracting large numbers of visitors by producing videos or blogs that end up being picked up on the licks of YouTube, Digg and Yahoo Buzz,’ he said.

One such example is the ‘Will it Blend?’ campaign by the makers of Blendtec Total Blender.

A series of adverts featuring items being dropped in the company’s industrial strength blender (to find out if they will blend) became a huge hit on YouTube and in turn gave the company’s brand more exposure.

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Almost 16.5 million households in the UK now have internet access, an increase of 1.2 million since 2007, the latest official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics ONS said the new figure represented close to two-thirds of UK households.

Homes in the South East are most likely to have internet access with those in north-east England least likely.

Over two-thirds of adults go online every day or almost every day, with men more regular users than women.

Graph showing rise in internet connectivity since 2005

In the 35% of households with no access, there was an increase in the proportion that said they did not want the internet at home, from 3% in 2006 to 24% in 2008.

The survey also found that the better educated were more likely to be online.

Graph showing rise in internet connectivity since 2005

The ONS said that 93% of adults aged under 70 who had a university degree or equivalent qualification had internet access.

This compared with just 56% of those with no formal qualifications being online.

Communications regulator Ofcom said earlier this month that PC and laptop use had grown fourfold since 2002.

BBC NEWS | Two-thirds of UK homes now online

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Computers will be more intelligent than humans within 40 years, according to Intel’s chief technology officer.

Justin Rattner was speaking at the final keynote of the Intel Developer Forum as Intel celebrates its 40th birthday, and he believed that the next 40 years will see the company create true AI.

‘In that time, machines from Intel will surpass human intelligence,’ he was quoted as saying on vnunet.com.

‘And progress in the next 100 years will be more like the progress of the past 20,000 years because of technology.’

Other inventions that the human race can look forward to in this time will be shape-shifting, programmable matter applications that can be controlled with the mind, reported ITPro.

Intel’s short-term goals are slightly less science-fictional, however, with the company signing a deal with Yahoo to enhance how people use their televisions by adding internet applications.

One example of this was a ’snippet bar’ at the bottom of the screen which contained information like weather, news, sports and share prices.

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Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

This morning, August 15 2008, Blog Action Day has launched. In the next two months they are hoping encourage thousands of bloggers, podcasters and videocasters to learn about poverty, and on October 15, take action.

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

All the blogers are invited to examine poverty from their own blog topics and perspectives, to look at it from the macro and micro, as a global condition and a local issue, and to bring their own ideas, views and opinions on the subject.

Because Poverty as a subject for blogging can feel a little daunting, they’ve prepared a series of resources to help bloggers get started with tackling this issue. Visit the Resources pages for help.

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IT organisations utilising blade servers need to be ready for changes in the technology, according to Gartner.

Blade-server growth will be limited during the next five years - despite the technology representing the fastest-growing segment of the server market, the analysts say.

This lack of growth will be due to continued, rapid change and a lack of standards.

While a compound annual growth rate of 19 per cent is predicted for blade shipments from 2007 through to 2012, this will not equal market domination, as blades only represented 10 per cent of shipments in 2007 and will only rise to 20 per cent in 2012.

However, Gartner did not want to put companies off buying the servers.

‘We are not suggesting that IT organisations stay away from blades - blades do address many problems in the data centre,’ said the vice president of Gartner, Andrew Butler.

‘What we are saying is that IT organisations adopting blades need to be prepared for further changes in this technology.

‘Blade servers have been a rapidly changing technology, and we fully expect this to continue, particularly during the next five years.’

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Almost all small online businesses do not believe they are liable for fraud on their websites, according to research sponsored by PayPoint.net.

The company found that 99 per cent of the 350 companies they surveyed did not accept any responsibility for fraud, with most passing it on to someone else.

Most blamed banks (35 per cent), nearly a quarter (24 per cent) blamed credit card companies while 23 per cent laid the blame on payment service providers.

However, 87 per cent did not anticipate complaints about fraud to reduce in the next year and 81 per cent of consumers are suspicious of security systems used by small companies, potentially pushing customers towards more familiar, big-name companies.

PayPoint.net managing director Alessandro Hatami said: ‘Small online online businesses lack the resources of their larger competitors but have an even greater interest in ensuring that customers have the safest possible experience.’

The company suggest comparing the IP address of the PC being used by the customer’s location with the billing and shipping address to improve security.

Small companies should also comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

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